I wrote two posts on this blog back in July on the graveyard under the parking lot of Canterbury House at the corner of Market and Archdale in old town Charleston, SC where I now live.

I wrote several posts after that…trying to stay within my stated framework…digging down on the history of this one little block in old town Charleston—the small city with a big history—so much history it is intimidating for a transplanted small town Missouri historical society person. Limiting myself to this one block seemed safe…enough.

But after documenting the history of my building complex and some about the area, I came to a standstill…I knew what lurked…

So…then I thought…I’ll finish up on “my” church in the parking lot and leave it at that. Researchers are laughing, I can hear them. They know what you are looking for tends to expand with the universe. So, after delving into the history of this one church, and realizing it would take a small book to adequately address it, I have chosen to do it in my blog as planned, but in phases.

I got the idea from the pastor of the church, himself. A newspaper article I had downloaded from the Post and Courier Archives (and paid for) two years ago and hadn’t actually read–just gathering information for when I might need it in the future–was where I started…I actually read it…

(But first I had to type it out to really read it…if you know old, scanned newspaper articles, you know what I mean…) But it turned out to be…

Miracle of Research Number 1.

The article was in The News and Courier dated July 14, 1873.  It was a first-person account of the church history told by the pastor. He broke his church’s history into four phases:

“The half-century under review may be divided into four parts. The first of twelve and a half years; the second twelve and a half years, ending July 1848; and the third of twelve and a half years, ending January 1861 (of greatest prosperity) and the fourth period from January 1861 to the present time, including its days of darkest adversity.”

I am, by nature, not a big church-attending person but I grew attached to this one and to the pastor…he ended his account with:

“Let us all endeavor to be faithful to the memory of those who have gone before us. And may the God who has watched over us with so much care, grant a peaceful end to our existence.”

Those are the words of a pastor of a church who will get his congregation through the Civil War in old town Charleston, South Carolina…barely…